


I Always Forget To Tell You I Love You

by linocaffe



Series: King of my Heart [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Prince Huang Ren Jun, World Travel, but it's for each other, jeno and renjun both do dumb stuff, skz and txt cameos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:09:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27664514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linocaffe/pseuds/linocaffe
Summary: It’s been four months since the last time he saw Jeno. There was no trace, not a single sign of him. He had just vanished.It was already hard looking for someone in a world, much harder looking in four. Renjun had been jumping back and forth, traveling to every corner. Looking for whatever he could find that could possibly tell him the whereabouts of his soulmate.So far, he had no luck at all. He was losing his mind.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Lee Jeno
Series: King of my Heart [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2041273
Comments: 5
Kudos: 39
Collections: Challenge #3 — soulmates





	I Always Forget To Tell You I Love You

**Author's Note:**

> for a little wonder fest round three (soulmates)!!

Renjun crumpled the paper in his hand. This leads to absolutely nothing. 

It had been his last clue to find him. He had exhausted everything else in his possession. 

“That’s not it.” He threw the paper to the ground and started walking back to the port.

“Are we going back now?” Donghyuck walked behind him, catching up to his fast steps. “Shouldn’t we stay a little longer? We could still find something.”

Renjun let out a loud sigh and turned to his friend beside him. “And have every lead be fake again? I can’t afford to lose my time in that.”

Donghyuck brushed a hand through his hair. “I still don’t understand.” He sounded exasperated. Renjun could relate; he looked calm right now, but his insides were burning. “Where could he have gone? And why is the link not working?”

If only he knew they wouldn’t be here right now, he wouldn’t be feeling this horrible painful loss at the bottom of his heart, and he wouldn’t be tearing every world apart looking for him.

It’s been four months since the last time he saw Jeno. There was no trace, not a single sign of him. He had just vanished.

It was already hard looking for someone in a world, much harder looking in four. Renjun had been jumping back and forth, traveling to every corner. Looking for whatever he could find that could possibly tell him the whereabouts of Jeno. 

So far, he had no luck at all. He was losing his mind.

He suddenly came to a halt and sighed again. “We are not going to find anything here.” Renjun repeated.

Donghyuck looked at him sideways, but he didn’t protest anymore. He knew he couldn’t change Rejun’s mind.

They were almost at the border of the small abandoned port. Renjun motioned with his hand towards the water. “After you.” 

His best friend took a deep breath and let himself fall into the water. Deep blue bubbles came to the surface; the water simmering as if boiling as soon as he fell. Renjun looked up at the sky. It was almost completely clear. This world was one of the nicer ones, much like the one they were going to. Though this one was hotter, brighter. Hyuck usually preferred staying here because of that.

“Done making a mess in here already?” A voice came from his left. A blue haired boy had his arms prompted over the port, the lower half of his body underwater.

“I’m leaving your dear world, you can stop complaining now.”

He lifted an eyebrow questioningly. “I assume no good news?”

“Not any better than yesterday’s” He didn’t wait for an answer, letting his body fall into the water right where his best friend had portaled through. 

Portaling between worlds wasn’t pleasant, but it wasn’t unpleasant either. Mainly when portaling through water, you felt like you were turning to sea foam, like sizzling. It was strange more than anything.

He opened his eyes as he came on the other side. He pulled himself out of the water, his clothes dry thanks to magic. 

The change was instant; the air felt colder, a light smell like burning coal. They had portaled near the mines. Talk about luck… 

“The hell took you so long? You know I hate being out here.” Donghyuck brushed off his clothes. “Dear goddess, why do we never fall in through the forest side?” 

Renjun adjusted his cape around his shoulders, having loosened when traveling. “I saw the Choi boy.” 

“The mermaid water princeling?” He scolded. “What did he want this time?”

“Nothing. ” Renjun simply said. He started walking to the palace, tracing the path he had taken so many times already. 

Hyuck's footsteps accompanied his. “What now, then?” 

“The same as always.”

\--------------------

Renjun threw the dagger. His wall was now filled with holes again. The palace staff had fixed it just last week. His mother scolded him for ruining the place, but he didn’t care. It was his own way of not going crazy.

Four months. The clock kept moving, and he still had no answers. 

After yanking the blade from the wall for the twentieth time in the last half an hour, he placed it on the table beside his bed and replaced it in his hand with the letter. It looked exactly the same it did the day he found it. The only thing he left behind after he went away. 

Renjun had tried almost everything. He had tried every enchantment hoping there was something hidden, had submerged it in water, tried different magic stones, had taken it to the other worlds to read it, hoping he would be led to something, almost everything he could do, he had tried. The only thing left trying was fire, but he didn’t feel like risking it; it was the only thing he had of him that made him still feel present. There were ways of restoration for almost everything but fire. 

He traced the words over the paper. They were so much like Jeno, yet so different from him. He could feel him in the words, in the writing, but there was something that still unsettled him, something that told him one thing was off, but he couldn’t point what.

_“Don't forget, don't forget where I'll be_

_I always forget to tell you I love you_

_I loved you from the very first day.”_

Jeno should know better. He didn’t need to tell him – he knew.

Nothing about his words made sense. Actually, nothing about any of this made sense. Jeno wasn’t the person to run away. He might seem soft and calm, he was quiet and composed, but he would fight everything and everyone if he had to. He was much like Renjun in that, they would take everything upfront. No running. More than anything, no running without each other. Which made his disappearance even stranger. 

He wouldn’t leave without telling him. Not only Jeno trusted him enough to tell him where he was going, but he also was his prince; by law, he should report to him since he worked in the palace.

But the oddest thing about everything, was that he couldn’t feel him. Jeno also wouldn’t leave without telling him because everywhere he went, Renjun would feel him through their soulmate bond anyway. He should be able to find him even across worlds. Only he could’t.

He had asked everyone he knew that knew a thing or two about soulmate bonds. This was not normal, and there was no answer to it – that was the conclusion all of them eventually came to. The only way a soulmate bond could not be felt was if one of the soulmates was dead. But that wasn’t possible, because he actually did feel his bond. It’s just that it was silent. It was there, but it was so...empty.

Renjun sighed and looked at the letter in his hands again.

_“I'm far away, but I never let you go_

_I'm love-struck and looking out the window_

_Don't forget where I'll be_

_I swear, I'll be with you someday_

_I'll be right here on the ground_

_When you come back down.”_

What did any of that meant? What window? Underground? Renjun had asked the earth Choi-clan fae prince. If there was someone who knew about undergrounds, it was him. However, he had found nothing, he couldn’t feel or see Jeno anywhere down.

_When he came back down._

It was something about that part…

Renjun threw his dagger at the wall again; he was getting more frustrated. He stood up and walked over to it at the other side of the room. He took the weapon by the hilt and wrenched it free.

Jeno had given it to him on his fifteenth birthday. It wasn’t much for a weapon, but it was beautiful: it was made of silver, delicately crafted with gemstones around the hilt, all precisely placed so that it would actually create a grip on the weapon, the stones arranged in a horizontal line, piled on top of each other. They symbolized the four worlds: water, earth, ice and fire. 

Water was where he had just come from; earth where he was now, his own native world. He traveled between them one at a time. There were not many who could do that, only the fae and the royal humans, like him.

He traced his thumb over the others: ice and fire, the two worlds at the end of the line. Renjun had visited several times in the last few months too, desperately looking for his soulmate. He had found just as much as here. It had been about two weeks since he went down, having exhausted all his possib-

_Went down… I'll be right here on the ground, when you come back down..._

Was that possibly what Jeno meant? But he had been there many times, and there was nothing. 

He went over to the bed and took the letter again. Could it be… he was in the fire world? 

He looked at his dagger in his right hand. The gemstone for fire was a ruby; he traced his thumb over it again. Was that word enough to be a clue? Could it be that Jeno– 

Something in the dagger popped. Renjun almost let it fall from this hand, but he had been able to hold onto it. His dagger was a normal regular dagger, however, something had popped from it. The hilt had separated from the blade, opening a small compartment in between he didn't know existed. Renjun looked inside to find a small piece of paper, with words that looked burned into it more than written. There were two words:

_Ember Ruins._

He mounted the blade back to the hilt, picked his cape and ran out of the castle. 

\-----------

Ember had been the old capital of the fire world, before it had gotten destroyed by blue fire in the last war with the ice fae, and the only thing that was left were charred remains. 

Renjun obviously never saw it standing – the war happened way before his father was born – but looking at it now, it was hard to imagine it as splendorous. Much like the rest of this world, it was all covered in ash and smoke. That had been the curse; the effects of the war could be seen everywhere, but Ember took the worse hit. 

Renjun walked around the ruins, stepping carefully not to break an ankle if he stepped wrong on all this debris. He coughed, the smoke was already clogging his lungs, it was so bad here he will probably be stuck with a cough for weeks. He understood well why people thought this place was haunted. There were so many stories about the old human and fae who died here, still roaming around seeking vengeance; and the feeling in the air, it felt like it was taking something from you, like singing to you and getting in your head besides your lungs. 

He was wondering how would he be able to look for Jeno here –where there was only concrete and the sour feeling of death everywhere –, when he finally felt it. A soft tug at first, and then so strong that it almost made him fall back. 

His soulmate bond was back again, as present as it was before. It was such a relief Renjun almost wanted to start crying. But he couldn't, this meant he was close, he couldn't lose his time now. 

He started walking again, picking up the pace until he was almost sprinting (his ankles be damned), following the pull in his bond. He was so close now, he could feel it. He finally halted, his heartbeat pumping as fast as it could. Here. He felt him here, but… There was nothing. 

Renjun looked around everywhere. The smoke wasn’t as thick in here, which was weird. But even then, he couldn’t see where Jeno could possibly be.

He thought again about the message. It only led him here, no instructions on what to do next. The only thing that came to his mind at that moment, was one line from Jeno’s letter.

_I'm love-struck and looking out the window._

There it was the answer: a window. More commonly known as pockets, because they were almost like pockets in space where you could hide things...or people.

The hardest thing about opening a pocket, was that you needed to know the exact place it was located, the rest was easy for him. His soulmate bond had probably been muted by magic to protect his location; but good thing it was back. He closed his eyes and projected himself outwards and right there, he could feel it. To Renjun, Jeno had always felt like another part of his own self.

The spell was fairly simple, he knew the words by heart. He pronounced them loud and clear, his heart beating fast. After four months, finally…

There was a ripple in the air, and right where there had been nothing, his soulmate appeared. He caught him, barely, before he hit the ground. He was here. He looked so much skinner, his skin stained with dark ash, and he could barely hold his head up, but he was here, and safe. Jeno was here, in his arms. 

“Renjun...”

He looked everywhere for any injuries. There seemed to be nothing urgent, but he looked so thin and weak it made his heart ache so much. “Goddess, Jeno, what happened? Who did this to you?”

“It was my fault.” He was trying to sit up, but his arms couldn't hold his body. Renjun held him tighter. 

“What?”

“It was me. I...I did a forbidden spell.” He admitted. 

“YOU WHAT?!” Renjun almost dropped his soulmate back to the floor. 

“I had to. The slumber plague…”

So that had been how he solved it.

A few months ago there was a threat that hit their land. It started with the crops dying. Almost every farmer close to the palace woke up to their dead plantations. It then started spreading farther across his world. It started getting really bad though, when it moved to humans. His people were now dying, just dropping sick as if something had taken their lives out; no symptoms besides a bone-deep weakness. 

Renjun had caught it. He wasn’t a prince who would sit and hide in his castle, so he must have gotten exposed when going to help his people. He had tried to be cautious, using protection spells and such, but no one knew if this was a curse, and how it generated, much less how it worked.

So one day, while going on patrol with Donghyuck, he just dropped. He doesn’t remember anything about that time. Some people remain awake, some others, like him, just went unconscious until their body was eventually consumed.

Renjun had woken up later, and everything had been fine. Just like that. 

Only it hadn’t been just like that. Renjun had thought that Jeno -being one of the best royal magic wielders in the kingdom - had managed to find a cure. He had been wrong.

“Jeno, why would you do that?!

“You were in more danger than I was. I knew there was a possibility to save myself, but you...I was desperate.”

Hiding his soul from the repercussions of a forbidden spell, yes, it could work but it wasn't a certainty. Too many risks. “You would’ve died if I didn’t find you!”

“But you did. I knew you would. Also…” He coughed onto his hand, leaving a trail of ash. “Yeonjun helped me. He kept me alive.”

“The fae fire princeling?”

“I also was the one to plant the message in your room _and_ in your dagger.” Renjun looked to the direction of the new voice, where the fae prince was now standing.

“How– How was that possible? I never saw you.” He frowned.

“I know you are good, but I am better. You are human after all.” He shrugged. “I couldn’t do much, you know I can’t get too involved; but at least I tried to help with the smoke.” So that explained why this area was clearer. 

It was true he had probably risked too much already; magic law was sacred to fae.

Renjun was about to question him about helping, when a loud sound disrupted the air.

“Crap.” Renjun muttered. He knew what those warnings meant.

“The human prince?” Yeonjun squinted suspiciously. “Don’t tell me you went through _that_ portal.”

“I had no other option. Passing through ice would take too long.”

“Renjun!” Jeno complained. His voice didn’t have much energy though.

“He’s not gonna like this, you are in trouble, Huang. And I’m leaving, I already did too much.” His face softened and he directed to Jeno, “Take care.”, before he disappeared.

“You...”

Renjun looked at the new prince now looking down at him. “Prince Kim.”

“I should’ve guessed it was you.” He brushed a hand through his hair. “You have a lot of explaining to do; but...I see you found him.” He looked over at Jeno, who waved weakly.

He sighed. “You both will have to come with me.”

He knew this was coming. Let’s just say, Renjun had taken a shortcut to cross worlds. A special portal that was, well, forbidden.

He was now getting what they meant when they said Jeno and him were meant for eachother. 

While helping Jeno get up, he remembered something. “You don't have to tell me that you love me. I know. ” 

Jeno seemed confused for a second, but then he understood and smiled. “Good. Because I do. I always forget to tell you, but I love you.” 

“I know. I love you too.” Since he was already holding him beside him, it wasn’t hard for him to get closer and kiss him. He had missed him so much.

Prince Seungmin sighed behind them. “This definitely wasn't on my plans for today.”

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact about this fic!!  
> the options for this round's theme were: soulmates, songfic, sci-fi, superheroes.  
> even though one was decided I still wanted to challenge myself to write about all the themes (even if it was barely connected lol) so...  
> soulmates is the chosen theme so it's pretty obvious - the soulmate bond.  
> sci-fi - this is fantasy but one thing that can be considered sci-fi is parallel worlds or other universes so that's for that (a bit of a reach i know lol).  
> songfic and superheroes both connect to the same reason - the letter jeno left for renjun are lyrics from taylor swift's song Superman.
> 
> anyway, i hope you liked it! thanks for reading!!


End file.
